


The Things We Did And Didn't Do

by psocoptera



Series: Thirty Fic [23]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 30Fic, Angst, College, Future Fic, M/M, Mutual Pining, No one is together, School Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 00:51:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2793770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psocoptera/pseuds/psocoptera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shitty convinces Bitty to come to Samwell Alumni Weekend for the class of 2015's ten-year reunion.</p>
<p>(Standalone story, see notes for series explanation.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Things We Did And Didn't Do

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't part of the 'Swawesome Santa exchange, I was just inspired by there being so much fannish energy going on and great stories and art being posted.
> 
> The Thirty Fic series is my long-term ongoing project of writing stories about characters turning or being thirty. The stories aren't related except by that one common thread. Eric Bittle is thirty in this story.

Samwell is the same, and different. Lake Quad still looks pretty much the same, but the south side of South Quad is all new - Eric remembers getting about a hundred pieces of mail about the capital campaign for the new buildings - and they must have relandscaped along River Street, because Eric's pretty sure the trees didn't use to look like that. His alumni contributions at work, perhaps. He remembers giving a tour, his junior year when he worked as a tour guide, during which the alumni grandfather of one of the prospective students had loudly groused about how in his day there'd been elms along Elm Street. It's only been eight years for Eric, not forty or fifty or whatever it had been for that guy, but maybe he was already starting to do the same thing, expect campus to remain as unchanged in real life as it was in his memory.

He shakes his head to himself. Campus is eight years older, he himself is not the Bitty of his college days, and anyone else attending Alumni Weekend will be eight years older too. Shitty's been claiming that Ransom and Holster might come, even though it's not their year; it had been part of how he'd talked Eric into this in the first place. And Chowder, Eric knows, has been coming every year since he graduated.

The dorm room he's been assigned for the weekend seems weirdly large without a college student's stuff all over it. Eric doesn't remember anyone whose room he'd ever been in who didn't have something extra - a cube fridge, a papasan chair, a coat tree. He'd done a presentation his senior year with a guy with a fish pond, right in the middle of his floor. Or, no, that had been junior year. Eric starts unpacking and plugging in the chargers for his phone and laptop and camglasses and smartwatch.

While he's hanging up his clothes for the weekend in the tiny closet - he's mildly self-satisfied over having brought hangers - he gets a new-message chime, and then another. It's Shitty, he's found Justin, he's suggesting a restaurant.

_sounds good_ , Eric sends back, and finds the men's room down the hall to wash his face and comb his hair. He doesn't have time for a proper shower, but at least he can freshen up and lose that hours-on-an-airplane feeling. He changes into a nicer shirt and sets back out across campus to meet his friends.

*

The restaurant is completely unfamiliar; Eric isn't sure whether that's because it's new, or if it just wasn't the sort of place he ever went as an undergrad. His most serious Samwell boyfriend, spring of junior year and fall of senior, had liked dinner dates, but they had mostly gone to that one Thai place half a mile down Whitney. This place is closer and noisier in a sort of cheerful, family-friendly way; Eric bets they get a lot of business from visiting parents taking their kids out.

God, that could be Ransom, in a few more years. Wait, does he have his family with him? Shitty hadn't said. Eric had told the hostess he'd wait to be seated until his whole party was there, but he should give her a heads-up if they're going to need a high chair.

He's halfway through a message to Shitty asking about this when he's tackle-hugged by the man himself.

"Yeep!" Eric yeeps - it's been a long time since anyone tried to pick him up - and Shitty says "oof!" and sets him back on his feet. "Bitty!" he's saying, "Bit Bit Bitty!"

Shitty is clean-shaven. That's been true for awhile now - since before Justin's wedding, even - but it's still always the thing that Eric sees first about him, whenever he visits. Eric keeps wondering if he's going to give up the ponytail at some point, too, but not yet, apparently.

Justin moves in for a hug once Shitty gives him room. He's weirdly unchanged - Eric hasn't seen him as often as he's seen Shitty, hasn't since the wedding, actually - but two children don't seem to have aged him any. The children are not in evidence - Bitty checks carefully over Ransom's shoulder for an infant back carrier before hugging him too hard, he'd had a weird incident with a cousin once where he put his arms around her to hug her and there turned out to be a whole other person back there - and Ransom explains as they sit down at their table that his wife is going river rafting with friends for a long weekend in July, and this is his big kid-free trip in return.

"Well I'm honored you're spending it on us," Eric says, and Shitty laughs, but Eric means it seriously. It's already so good just to see them, to see campus. He's starting to wonder why he's been so resistant to doing this. His mother had said he would regret skipping his five-year reunion; she's not right about everything, but Eric is starting to conclude she was right about this.

There is beer and good red-pepper dip on mediocre flatbreads. They do the standard catching-up thing - Shitty is pretty passionate about his latest case with the ACLU, Justin is optimistic that his research will finally be ready to publish before the money for the postdoc position runs out. (Eric has _no idea_ what he's talking about past "protein" and "cells".) Eric always feels a little embarrassed, in these conversations, that he's still at his crappy office job, but he gets to tell them his publisher is interested in doing a second cookbook, which he isn't talking about on social media yet, so that's nice.

They move on to gossip over mains (chicken for Eric, adequate but not exciting). Eric follows everybody across all the social media platforms, even the new stupid ones, but Ransom still Skypes with Holster every weekend, and Shitty saw Lardo in April, so their news is better, the personal stuff not quite ready even for friend-circle posting. Holster is buying a vacation house. Lardo is trying to get pregnant, but it's maybe not going so well (which is just terrible news, Eric is sending her a box of cookies the second he's back in a kitchen). Eric turns out to be the only one who's heard about Dex and his partner applying to be foster parents, so he tells them about that, and there is a general agreement that if the '18s are having kids, they all need another beer.

Eric thinks it's a little hypocritical for Justin to be weirded out by Dex maybe having a kid around, given that he himself has a four-year-old and a toddler, but Shitty agrees that people from younger classes will always and forever be Young and it's legitimate to feel old in comparison. They smirkingly agree that Eric is still Young even though he's sitting right there. It's not news to Eric that his upperclassmen have always thought of him as a kid. There have been times, in the last year especially, when he's wondered whether things might have been different if he was just a couple of years older. But he certainly doesn't want to say anything about that right now, so he fills his mouth with a big sip of beer and lets Shitty meander the conversation to his own parents, the way they're still treating him like a kid despite the law degree and the career.

"Kids, man," Ransom advises, "You have a kid and it's like, wham! Official adulthood." But Shitty hasn't dated anyone seriously in a couple of years, Eric knows. Almost as long as it's been for him.

They get the check and split it, accomplished entirely by phone (it's weird to think that ten years ago they were still carrying cash and credit cards around). Eric thinks they're done but then Shitty raises his eyebrows at Ransom and he taps again on his phone.

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbles at Shitty, "I'm paying up, you were right."

Eric narrows his eyes at them.

"I'm sure y'all did not make me the subject of a bet between you," he says, and they exchange a glance that makes it very clear that that's just what they did.

"I just thought you'd want to talk about him," Justin says apologetically, once they're out the door. "I was the one who said I'd put money on it."

"You didn't have to take it," Eric says to Shitty sternly, who just shrugged.

"Hey, it kept him from bringing him up," Shitty says.

Eric shakes his head. "I am neutral on the topic of Jack Zimmermann," he says. "Talk about him or don't, as you like."

He's not lying. He wouldn't have let Shitty talk him into coming if he was going to get weird about Jack. Of course people will want to talk about him. He'll probably see him at one of the events tomorrow. It's all okay.

"So did you know he was gay?!" Ransom says immediately, now that he has permission. "I mean, at Samwell. Did he ever say anything to you?"

Eric keeps his face blank. "No," he says, "He did not."

Jack had never said anything. He had, once, when they were alone at the rink, checked Eric into the boards and then stayed there a beat too long, their bodies pressed together, and a second beat, and Eric had looked up into his eyes and Jack had looked down, pupils blown, and Eric had lifted his face and Jack had back-skated like he was Scott Hamilton doing a comedy routine, all exaggerated flailing feet and arms. He had once blushed when Eric licked leftover pie filling off a spoon. Given later events, Eric had convinced himself he'd been mistaken about both instances and a few such others, until Jack's You Can Play video had reopened his speculations.

"Man," Ransom says, shaking his head. "I can see why he didn't want to be out in the NHL, especially back then, but I hope he knew we would have been cool in the Haus."

Shitty is ahead of them on the sidewalk, so Eric can't see his reaction to any of this. He's never wanted to ask what exactly Shitty knew when. Or, well, he's wondered, but it's never seemed fair to ask.

"I think it's great how many players have come out," he says instead. "If you had told me ten years ago I wouldn't have believed it."

Shitty takes that as a vaguely related launching point to start expounding about the upcoming NHL draft at the end of the month. The topic carries them all the way back to main campus, where they discover that, being three different class years, they've been placed into three different dorms.

"I wish we were going back to the Haus," Ransom says wistfully.

"It's probably still haunnnnted," Shitty teases. Eric points out that they can at least walk past - he'll feel like less of a creeper if it's not just him - and so they do, crossing back over the river and taking the familiar path with its unfamiliar new landscaping. The Haus itself, when it gets there, looks weird - Eric swears it's a different color, while Shitty and Ransom think it's the same color but the light is different, that the town must be using a different kind of bulb in the streetlights. They decide they'll have to ask Chowder tomorrow, that he'll know.

They'd had a late dinner but it's early to call it a night; Shitty suggests a bar but Eric begs off, claiming tiredness. Ransom starts poking his phone and declares his intention to try to meet up with some bio people.

Back in his room, Eric is way too twitchy to try to sleep. He catches up on media, makes a few tweets (he's still using Twitter) and a tok post (he's really not sure about Tiktalk), just general stuff, he's back at Samwell for the first time in eight years, campus looks great, he'll be at the Faber skate for sure if anyone is looking for him to say hi, or message him. Chowder replies before Eric goes to bed, mostly emojis and exclamation points. It makes Eric smile, and feel a little less apprehensive about the next day.

*

The dorm bed is terrible, sagging almost like a hammock. By the time it really starts to bother Eric's back, it's three AM and he doesn't want to wake up enough to deal with it, but he promises himself he'll take care of it for tomorrow. If Eric were living in this room for a semester, he'd have to get plywood to put between the springs and the mattress; for one more night, he can just move the mattress to the floor. In the morning, he can't get the lights to go on in the shower area of the men's bathroom, and he drags himself to the dining hall to grossly overpay for hard melon slices and flavorless bagels. He wonders if the secret purpose of Alumni Weekend is to stop people being stupidly nostalgic about college life by reminding them of all the ways it was annoying.

The Faber skate isn't until the afternoon, but there are a couple of lectures in the morning that sound interesting - Recent Archaeological Finds, What Does The 2024 Election Tell Us About 2028, that sort of thing, so he plays student again for a little while. The archaeology lecturer has okayed camglasses so Eric nabs a couple of slides he wants to read more about, some big dig in Turkey. Chowder finds him in a break and whisks him away for lunch (a food truck making very respectable wraps) and a pleasant argument over whether the Sharks got robbed in the playoffs. Chowder is still excitable and adorable and Eric can't help but remember the time he was comforting him after the whole thing with Nursey and Dex fell apart and Chowder made a pass at him. Eric had still been with Nathan, so of course he'd said no, and Chowder had been embarrassed when he sobered up, but it's as if the incident left a little frisson of _what-if_ in their friendship.

_What-if_ , Eric tells himself, is not a bad thing. He reminds himself a few more times on their way over to Faber.

*

The Faber renovation campaign kicks off with a speech from the university athletic director about the importance of sport to a well-rounded education, or something. Eric misses most of it because Chowder and Ransom keep elbowing him with whispered reminiscences, and whenever they aren't he keeps staring at Jack.

Eric knows perfectly well what he looks like now - he's seen official photos, video clips of goals and cellys, random shots reblogged by Puck Daddy. And it's not like he even looks dramatically different than he used to - a tiny hint of grey at the temples, maybe. (Not like Eric with his belly and receding hairline, Eric whose frog-year hallmate hadn't even recognized him at the lectures that morning until he named himself.) The thing Eric can't stop looking at is the way Jack keeps looking up at _them_ \- probably at Ransom and Shitty, actually, who are making more noise than an audience should. But he keeps making eye contact with Eric, and each time, Eric looks away, back at the rambling athletic director, until he can't resist peeking over at Jack again.

The athletic director wraps up and an old guy who turns out to have been in the NHL for like twenty years back in the 70s and 80s croaks out a few words about the proud history of Samwell hockey. And then Jack gets up, to explain why it was important to him to donate the seed funding to make an aging Faber fit for the next generation of players. Eric nabs the whole thing on his smartglasses, ignoring Shitty's knowing eyebrows. Jack's speech is obviously very rehearsed, and he's smiling in a way he never used to when he gave speeches to the team (Eric blames media training), but... it's Eric's _captain_ speaking. Eric feels a little shiver of identification every time Jack says something about "my teammates at Samwell", and he doesn't think he's imagining that Jack's looking right at their row of seats when he does.

Jack finishes by expressing his thanks and appreciating to Samwell for the opportunity and priceless experience they gave him. To Eric's ear, it's the most heartfelt part of the speech. Not that he thinks the rest was insincere - Jack is obviously wealthy, after 9 years in the NHL, but he's not so crazy-Crosby rich that he'd throw away more than a million dollars on something he didn't care about - but the thank-you is obviously more important to Jack than the parts that are supposed to make other people want to donate too. Eric intends to clap politely when he's done, but Shitty and Ransom are whooping, and someone's taught Chowder to do one of those ear-piercing fingers-in-mouth whistles, so Eric ends up cheering a little too. Pretty much everyone there is there to see Jack, so it blends right in to the noisy applause.

With the speeches done, it's time to skate. Eric had felt sheepish when he'd added the ticket to Skate With Jack Zimmermann to his registration package - he has spent uncountable hours Skating With Jack Zimmermann and there's something embarrassing and strange about paying for the privilege - but it supports Faber. And Shitty had said he had to. They all have their skates along with them, so they're able to skip the line for rental skates and get out on the ice.

Eric's in good shape for it; he's been working as a referee for youth hockey, it's a good way for a gay man without kids to be involved without the homophobic paranoia he might face as a volunteer coach. And Chowder plays in a beer league. Shitty, though, admits that he's hardly been on the ice since 2L, and Justin, it turns out, hasn't worn his skates since his first kid was born. Eric and Chowder are shocked: four is past old enough, why hasn't Justin gotten that kid out there? Justin silences them by explaining that he's been waiting until Holster can be there for it, and their plans keep falling through. (He doesn't have to elaborate: Holster seems to be a particularly injury-prone defenseman and Eric is honestly shocked he's outlasted Jack in the NHL.)

The rink is way too crowded with slow-moving oldsters and wobbling little kids in helmets for them to race or do anything fancy, but they skate around in lazy circles, Shitty and Ransom beaming as the feeling of the cold air and motion comes back to them. Eric loves this, in hockey skates, in figure skates, in the speed skates an OkCupid date had once gotten him to try. Jack is completely mobbed near the center of the rink - he barely has room to move, he's pretty much just standing there. Shitty and Ransom keep waving at him as they go around, with various numbers of fingers and other hand signals of dubious propriety for a family event. Chowder yells that he should have loaned him goalie skates if he was just going to stand around.

Eric waves a couple of times too, and, once, Jack waves back.

They skate and break for complementary hot chocolate and skate some more. Jack skates very courteously around the rink a few times with breathless older women hanging on to his arm - probably other big-time donors, Eric guesses, or their wives - and a few more times with kids holding each hand. It's adorable and Eric absolutely has to nab it. The smallest kids are hardly bigger than Ransom's four-year-old.

*

Jack somehow vanishes as the skate wraps up - he's probably doing the same thing Eric has to go do, change out of his Samwell sweatshirt and jeans into a suit for dinner. Mens Hockey Reunion Dinner is being held at the golf course clubhouse where they used to do the team banquets. Shitty had commanded him to buy the ticket the same way as he had for the skate, but Eric would have anyways. The clubhouse food is pretty decent and despite having only been in it a handful of times, Eric feels a fair bit of nostalgia for the place and is pleased to see it again.

The room is full and seems to be dominated by a cohort of guys from the class of 2000, all rather loudly incredulous that it's been a quarter of a century since they graduated. Eric's been seated near Chowder, an '06 who turns out to be in Chowder's beer league, and the '06's wife. They banter about playoff chances for awhile and then Eric makes the wife's night when he (noticing a certain... cheerful tolerance on her part) inquires whether she happens to prefer figure skating to hockey. They have a lovely chat about the 2026 Olympics while the salad course is replaced by mains. (Steak, for Eric; he _should_ have chosen the cod, he's not a hockey player any more and shouldn't eat like one, but he notices pretty much all the other former players have gone the same way. More nostalgia, maybe.)

Jack is up at the head table with an assortment of venerables from Samwell's hockey history, many of whom get up to give wandering, half-inaudible toasts as dinner winds down. Chowder, who's been going to Hockey Dinner since immediately after he graduated, actually knows a lot of the guys and provides helpful commentary ("he's class of 1974 and was so excited to see his teammates last year", "oh ooh he played with Bobby Orr!"). Eric is sort of waiting for Jack's toast (who is he kidding, he's totally waiting for it) but he can see Jack managing to humble-head-shake his way out of it when it looks like his turn.

Dessert is a cheesecake so generic that even Chowder pokes at it and says it just doesn't seem right to be having dinner with Bitty without pie on the table.

"Next year," he says, "We should see if Jack can get them to open up the Haus for us, for the weekend, and then you'd have the kitchen."

Eric isn't sure what to say; he's been having a good time, but he doesn't think he's a convert to annual attendance yet.

"Maybe in 2027," he suggests. Even when he had first blown off Shitty's encouragement to come, he had agreed he would probably go to his own ten-year reunion.

*

After dinner there's schmoozing and a cash bar. Eric excuses himself to the restroom and five minutes of restorative social-media checking and when he comes back, Shitty, Justin, and Chowder are all in a large and animated conversational cluster with Jack, Bobby Orr's teammate, and a few of the '00s. Eric considers trying to insinuate himself into it, but, well. This isn't a _bad_ note to end the evening on, pleasantly sated with food and conversation, happy to have seen his friends. He doesn't always have the social energy anymore that he had ten years ago. He slips back out and starts heading back to main campus, messaging Shitty as he walks. ( _turning in early, brunch tomorrow?_ )

The golf course is on the other side of the Pond from everything else and the path back is poorly lit. Eric turns on the seldom-used display function in his glasses (he's such an old, but he's always felt more comfortable with screens) and lets the navigation app help him remember which of the forks in the paths he wants to take. He's paying more attention to the floating arrows than he is to his surroundings, and has a moment of disorientation and alarm when he hears running footsteps behind him - should he run for the blue light of the emergency phone in the distance? Wait, no, this the future, should he tell his watch to call 911?

He looks back over his shoulder just as the person calls out "Bittle!".

It's Jack, of course.

"Hey," he says, running up. "You, uh. You left." He's panting a little; he's either completely slacked off during his year of retirement, or he was really running fast.

"Yes," Eric says. "Well. I - . Sorry. I'm very sorry about that, I did not intend it as a rudeness, nor did I mean to drag you away from - "

"Bittle. Hey," Jack says, "It's good to see you," and there's a moment where they're both clearly trying to figure out whether they hug. They do, Eric decides, it's ridiculous that they might not, although he realizes halfway through that he's executing a bro hug like he would a ballroom dance, one step in, handshake, another step, back pat, two steps back.

Just for a second, it puts him close enough to Jack to notice that he's changed colognes. At some point in the past ten years. Which is probably not surprising.

"Walk with me around the Pond?" Jack asks. "I mean - Shitty said you were in the dorms. We could go the long way. If you're heading back."

_Like we used to_ , Jack doesn't add. _Until we stopped_ , Eric doesn't say. He just nods his agreement and fiddles with his glasses to turn off the display.

"It's nice that we got such good weather for the weekend, they were predicting rain," Eric says, looking for a polite conversational opener, and, great, he is officially talking to Jack about the weather. He tries again. "How are you liking retirement?"

"I'm keeping busy," Jack says. He sighs. "No, that's what I would have said back there." He jerks his chin in the direction of the clubhouse. "Sometimes I'm glad, sometimes it's been really hard. Harder than I expected."

"I always figured you'd challenge Gordie Howe," Eric says. "They'd have to take you off the ice in a wheelchair."

Jack is silent for a moment. "It's okay if you ask," he says.

"Okay," Eric says, "Why? You didn't get hurt, right? Shitty would have said if it was an injury." It's been a thing for a long time, the delicate balance between what Shitty knows and what Jack is comfortable with him sharing with Eric.

"No," Jack says. "No injury. I just - felt old, out there. Starting a couple of years ago, and then one day I realized the new draft prospects could actually be my kids. Not just that they were so much younger, but, mathematically, they could actually - if I hadn't - " He's maybe blushing slightly.

"Jack Zimmermann you are not telling me you didn't use protection as a teenager and you have an actual kid in the NHL."

"No! Just - if, when I. Accidents can happen."

Eric, who has never had sex that required contraception, nods vaguely.

"I wasn't lying when I said I was satisfied with my career, in interviews," Jack goes on. "I know the talking heads say I should have been a franchise player, should have played for Canada in Pyeongchang or Almaty, should have lifted a Cup. But I got to play in the show. We played some good hockey." He shrugs.

"I'm glad," Eric says. "That you're - happy."

They walk for a moment in silence. Eric tries to think of what to say. Should he tell Jack about his cookbook? Ask him more about his post-retirement plans?

"Bittle," Jack says, "Bitty. Back at Samwell... why didn't we ever get together?"

And, oh. Eric has to stop walking for a minute at the breathtaking unfairness of that question, coming from Jack.

"I guess we didn't have much in common other than hockey," he says lightly.

"We had plenty in common," Jack says. He reaches out a little, like he's maybe going to put his hand on Eric's arm.

"Fine, we didn't get together because you didn't think of me that way," Eric snaps, taking a half-step back. "That's what you told me, when I told you how I felt about you. I think we were about a hundred yards over that way," he says, pointing with his thumb, "Want to see if it jogs your memory? Why are we revisiting this?"

Jack puts his hand briefly over his eyes. "No," he says. "I remember, I'm sorry. I - I wanted to apologize, for that. It wasn't true, and it wasn't a fair thing to say, and - I've felt bad, about that. I wanted you to know. Sorry."

Eric takes a deep breath, lets it go, inhales again. There's no wind, the leaves and the Pond and Jack are all completely still. "Rejection isn't fun," he says, as evenly as he can. "But neither is the closet. I'm glad you finally got out. Congratulations about that," he adds, "I should have said."

"You did on Twitter," Jack says, "And that other thing."

"You read my Twitter," Eric says inanely.

"Yeah," Jack shrugs.

Jack's charcoal grey suit might as well be black, in the dark. His crimson Samwell tie looks dark brown. His eyes are all pupil in the low light. If this was a movie, Eric thinks, this would be where they would kiss.

"I was surprised not to see Lee with you," he says instead.

"Oh," Jack says, "Yeah. He, uh, he hates this kind of thing. Hockey Dinner."

As if you don't, Eric thinks. But, no, Jack might not be much for giving speeches, but he's always been happy sitting around shooting the breeze about hockey. Eric feels bad again that Jack is missing the after-dinner part of the dinner because Eric left.

"I would have liked to meet him," he says politely.

"Yeah," Jack says, "He's - he's a really good guy." By some mutual, wordless agreement, they start walking again.

"I think he thought coming out would make me more of a different person than I am," Jack volunteers suddenly, and then catches himself. "But - no. It's - good. We're good."

"I'm glad," Eric says again.

"And... you?" Jack asks awkwardly. "Is there - anyone?"

"It would be all over my Twitter," Eric says, "Y'all would _know_ , I would probably never shut up about it." He grins, and Jack chuckles a little. Eric's always been so proud when he can get him to laugh.

They walk the rest of the way back to main campus, along the shore of the Pond. Eric asks Jack what it's like to be getting invited to GLAAD events (Jack has no recollection of meeting Adam Lambert, although Eric has _seen the pictures_ ), Jack asks Eric whether he's thought about coaching.

Jack walks Eric right up to the door of his dorm for the weekend. There's another moment of hesitation before they hug goodbye.

"I guess Holster might invite a bunch of us out to his vacation house once he gets it," Jack says. "Do you think you maybe - ?"

"I guess we'll see," Eric deflects. "How big is this vacation house going to be, goodness."

Jack half-smiles, and waves, and leaves. Eric goes up the stairs alone.

He's been wondering for awhile if they would have that conversation someday. Now they have. It feels weirdly less momentous than he might have thought it would be, once. Maybe because Jack hadn't really said anything that Eric hadn't already guessed at.

He wonders suddenly, belatedly, if he should have said more. Maybe Jack had wanted him to ask more questions ( _it's okay if you ask_ , he had said, and maybe he hadn't just meant his retirement). Maybe Eric should have reassured him more - he hadn't formally accepted Jack's apology, not in so many words.

But, no. This is like walking out of a final and doubting his approach to the essay question all over again. He can't ask Jack why he was willing to come out for Lee and not for Eric, especially when the difference might just be the end of an NHL career vs the beginning of one. And he can't tell Jack he didn't break his heart. Not if the point was to tell the truth.

Eric sits down heavily on the side of his terrible dorm bed. It sags underneath him. He had tried so hard to do the right things, afterwards. Dating, socializing, not being pathetic - his last two years at Samwell he'd practically earned a minor in Being Okay With What Happened. If Jack had wanted to see for himself that Eric was okay, that was fine: Eric had been glad to see that Jack was okay too.

*

He gets brunch with Shitty at the same place they had dinner. (Omelet with red pepper and Muenster, actually pretty good.) Shitty has his things, he's heading straight to the airport after; Eric has time before his flight to go back to the dorm and check out.

"I think this Vacation Haus thing is really going to happen," Shitty says, once they've each had that vital first sip of coffee. "Holster sent us some pictures last night of places he's considering. He says he's making sure to look at the kitchens."

"That's - " _great_ , Eric means to say. "Premature."

Shitty looks at him sympathetically. "Did Jack talk to you last night?"

"Yes," Eric says, then, "Wait. Did you tell him to talk to me?"

"I didn't tell him _not_ to talk to you," Shitty says. "Was it bad? I thought you'd want to know."

"You thought I'd want to know?" Eric can't help but ask. "Or _you_ wanted me to know, that you hadn't been so off-base in encouraging me, back then?"

"He was so into you," Shitty sighs. "I was sworn to secrecy, but you were so freaked out about whether to say something... I really didn't think I was steering you wrong."

"I would have hated myself if I'd never tried," Eric says. "At least this way it was... definite."

"You weren't the only one crying on my shoulder afterwards," Shitty says. "I think I can tell you that at this point."

Eric isn't sure what to say to that. "Sorry," he mumbles.

"Don't apologize," Shitty says. "I'm just - he always wanted to hear about you, he was hung up on you for a long time, and I was always just telling you he was fine."

"I seem to recall it as 'he's just really focused on hockey'," Eric says. It's probably unfair to Nathan (who had been a really nice guy, Eric still followed his Instagram) to wonder just how long Jack had kept thinking about him. It had seemed at the time to Eric like Jack had dived into the NHL and never looked back.

"Yeah," Shitty says. "Oh. God. This is - this one is actually all me, the thing about his diet plan, and the cookies? Every box, he'd get the cookies, and he would call me, and just be so, so sad. They were, like, the Cookies of Guilt and Regret, and - "

"Nooo," Eric says, "They were supposed to be the Cookies of No Hard Feelings! They weren't supposed to make him upset! Really?" Despite it being years later, this is a vaguely mortifying revelation.

"Yeah," Shitty says. "So I was the one who told him to just tell you they didn't fit his nutrition plan."

"I always wondered about that," Eric said. "Holster never complained about his."

"To be fair, you sent them to Jack like five times as often," Shitty says. "And he got way more pies, when we were at Samwell."

"Oh, I see how it is," Eric says, "You were jealous of Jack's pies, hmm?"

Shitty sighs. "No, not really," he says. "Before - before it didn't happen, it just seemed... fair. Of course he was going to get special pie. I really thought you guys were going to be one of those Lassie couples," Shitty says. "You know, met at the 'Well, together forever." He sighs again. "Of course I thought that about Lardo too."

Eric pats his hand. "Yeah," he says. There isn't much he can add to that. He'd barely dared to get that far, dreaming about Jack, and he'd never had overlapping post-graduation plans with Nathan.

"Have you met Lee?" he asks instead. "I didn't want to ask, before, but now I'm curious. What's he like?"

"He's a nice guy," Shitty says. "Kind of casual, laid-back, happy to do his thing. You'd probably get along with him okay, if we all end up at the Vacation Haus together."

Eric thinks about that all through his goodbyes to Shitty and his walk back to campus. It's obviously completely reasonable that he would be expected to be okay spending time around Jack's partner, it just sucks a little. Eric doesn't want to be that guy who can't be around his ex, especially when Jack isn't even his ex. He's not sure whether it would have been easier if Jack hadn't said anything, or not.

He crosses the river and lets himself take an indirect path back to his dorm. He meanders past the library, past the student center. His time as a student feels both incredibly distant and like it might have happened yesterday, like he can hardly believe he was really once a student here and like he might still have classes tomorrow. He has to stop himself from reflexively ducking in to the mailboxes to check for package slips.

Shitty had been right to make him come. Avoiding campus hadn't changed the speed at which it's receding from his present. But part of him is always going to be here, just like part of him will always be twirling in sequins. Part of him will always be in love with Jack Zimmermann. It's sharp, and sweet, and poignant like all singular things. It'll leave him like his ability to land a double axel has gone, or stay like the thrill of a dropped puck. Maybe someday Eric will bring his husband to Hockey Dinner, or drag his kid skating at the renovated Faber and tell him how his old man scored his best goals here, but he'll only ever be a visitor, a guest, an old friend no longer close. Coming to Samwell has always meant having to leave again. There had only ever been the briefest time when he had thought maybe he could have one of his favorite parts of it to keep.

Eric packs up his chargers, his hangers, his suit in its garment bag. _If only_ , he thinks, _we could have, we might be_ \- but, _no_. He takes one last look at the Pond. He goes home.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from a Magnetic Fields song of the same name. "The things we did and didn't do, come flooding back to me now."


End file.
